Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I am pleased to support the motion and thank Senator Averil Power for tabling it, as it gives us an opportunity to see where there is consensus and agreement for the betterment of all.

I compliment the ICTU on putting forward the charter for fair conditions at work. I have been an employer more often than I have been an employee. I worked in the private sector for almost 15 years with a small or medium-sized enterprise, SME, an office supplies company in which I rose to the position of director and took many decisions as an employer. When I approached the ICTU charter to sign it, I brought some of that experience with me. What it lays out is reasonable and something we should all be striving to achieve and ensure. That is why I am very happy to support the motion.

The living wage technical group, comprising the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice, the Nevin Economic Research Institute, Social Justice Ireland, SIPTU and TASC, on Monday published a report which calculated that people needed to earn €450 a week or €11.50 an hour to achieve a minimal acceptable standard of living. That is one third more than the current national minimum wage of €8.65 an hour for an experienced adult, that is, an adult over the age of 18 years who has been in employment of any kind in any two years. A person under 18 years earns €6.06 an hour; someone in the first year of employment since turning 18 is entitled to €6.92 an hour. I deal with groups dealing with children in crisis. A young person who comes out of the care system at the age of 18 years is expected to fend for himself or herself and make ends meet, but in a first job he or she is entitled to only €6.92 an hour. That is a meaningful €4.58 below the estimated living wage. How is anyone, especially a vulnerable young person leaving care with very little support, supposed to survive on this? I know that the Low Pay Commission is set to report on the issue next month.

The sum of €11.50 represents a 5% increase on the living wage calculated in 2014, despite a decrease in food, energy bill and universal social charge, USC, payments. I was surprised by this, but it includes the private rental sector which we discussed earlier today. It comes up time and again that a disproportionate amount of people’s incomes is eaten up every month. One in five families is in the private rental sector, quite a significant number. It is absolutely essential, therefore, to tackle the housing crisis. There is a chronic shortage of social housing and a lack of rent certainty and regulation. There are continual rent increases. Threshold has made several proposals on the Residential Tenancies Act, 2004.

There is a lack of investment in child care services. I was very surprised to hear the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection suggest that in the next budget there be an increase of €5 in child benefit. Throughout the crisis we heard lectures in this House to the effect that cash transfers were not the answer, that the Government had to invest in services to reduce the cost of services and ensure quality services were available for all children. We have the highest child care costs in the European Union, at 35% of a family’s income, whereas the EU average is 12%. That is not because child care providers are charging more but because the Government is investing so little. Our rate of investment in child care is 0.4% of gross domestic product annually, which means that we are lagging way behind the European average of 1% of GDP. This issue needs to be tackled.Colleagues have already raised the issue of fair hours of work and I certainly back what Senator Moloney said.

I also wish to raise the issue of the family income supplement. An employee must work at least 19 hours per week. Particularly for lone parents we were promised cuts would not be made without the aforementioned child care being in place. Even though that is not in place, draconian cuts were made. Having been an employer, I find it demeaning that employees have to bare their souls to employers. They have to fill out a form outlining all their life details and ask the employer to sign the form. All this information is known by the State. The employer, who is signing this, has that person over a barrel and knows his or her personal life story now, which, as an employer, I do not believe should be the case. That brings us into the exploitative low-hours contracts. It avoids obligations regarding pensions and holiday pay. It is immoral to keep staff in a permanent state of insecurity. It has a real impact on quality of life and family life.

I wish to deal with the right to representation and also, with my former employer's hat on, the right not to be represented. There are both rights. The difficulty is that when it comes to the gender pay gap, the figures clearly show that those who are represented by unions will do better. Figures from Britain show a staggering 22% difference between unionised women's pay and non-unionised women's pay. The gap is narrower in the public than in the private sector, which is primarily due to the higher rate of unionisation in the public sector. This is mirrored across the EU where women's wages in the private sector are approximately 10% less than in the public sector.

This is borne out by a recent international analysis. In the US in 2014 the National Women's Law Center found that the gender pay gap between what unionised male workers make and what unionised female workers make is just 9.4%, meaning that women working full time make more than 90% of what men do. This compares with a pay gap of 18.7% among non-union members.

US companies such as Facebook and Apple recently announced they would pay for female employees to have their eggs frozen to facilitate starting families later. It might be more useful for employers to consider giving facilities and fridges for the production and storage of breast milk. We really need practical Government policies, such as a one-year maternity and paternity leave.

I commend Senator Power on tabling the motion, which gave us an opportunity to explore the different aspects of the charter. It is a really good device for us for us all to strive to find better working conditions and to have the society we wish to have.